| Viking raid on Išbīliya | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theViking expansion | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Vikings ofNoirmoutier,Francia[1] | Emirate of Cordoba Banu Qasi | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Unknown | Isa ibn Shuhayd [ar] Musa ibn Musa al-Qasi Abd al-Wāḥid ben Yazīd al-Iskandarānī[2] | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Early Muslim accounts: 16,000 men 80 ships[3][4] | Unknown | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Early Muslim accounts: 500–1,000 killed 30 ships destroyed[5][6] | Unknown | ||||||
 | |||||||
TheViking raid on Išbīliya, then part of theUmayyadEmirate of Córdoba, took place in 844. After raiding the coasts of what are now Spain and Portugal, aViking fleet arrived in Išbīliya (nowSeville) through theGuadalquivir on 25 September and took the city on 1 or 3 October. The Vikingspillaged the city and the surrounding areas.EmirAbd ar-Rahman II of Córdoba mobilized and sent a large force against the Vikings under the command of thehajib (chief-minister) Isa ibn Shuhayd.[3]
After a series of indecisive engagements, theMuslim army defeated the Vikings on either 11 or 17 November. Seville was retaken and the remnants of the Vikings fled Spain. After the raid, the Muslims raised new troops and built more ships and other military equipment to protect the coast. The quick military response in 844 and the subsequent defensive improvements discouraged further attacks by the Vikings.[3]
Historians such asHugh N. Kennedy andNeil Price contrast the rapid Muslim response during the 844 raids, as well as the organization of long-term defenses, with the weak responses by theCarolingian dynasty andAnglo-Saxons against Viking aggression.[3][7]
After theAbbasid Revolution which overthrew theUmayyad Caliphate, Muslims of theIberian Peninsula (calledal-Andalus by the Muslims) declaredan independent emirate, with its capital inCórdoba in 756.[8] The Umayyad-ruled emirate received waves of refugees who escaped the revolution in the Middle East, and soon became a center of intellectual development.[8]
The 844 raid was the first confirmed large-scale Viking incursion on the peninsula.[8] During this period, al-Andalus was in a state of uneasy peace with the Iberian and Frankish Christians to its north, dotted by constant skirmishes and occasional military campaigns across a sort of a demilitarized zone between them.[8] There might have been small Viking incursions to theKingdom of Asturias in the early ninth century prior to the raid.[8]
The Viking fleet was, prior to attacking Seville, seen near the coast of France and on French rivers (theSeine, theLoire, and theGaronne).[9] They plunderedAsturias, under the rule of the Christian KingRamiro I, but suffered heavy losses atA Coruña and were defeated by Ramiro at theTower of Hercules. Next, they sailed southward and plundered the Atlantic coast. They took the Muslim city ofLisbon in August or September 844[a] and occupied it for 13 days, during which time they engaged in skirmishes with the Muslims.[11][12]
The governor of Lisbon,Wahballah ibn Hazm, wrote about the attack to EmirAbd ar-Rahman II of Córdoba, who was the overall leader of Muslims in Spain.[13][3] After leaving Lisbon, they sailed further south and raided the Spanish towns ofCádiz,Medina Sidonia, andAlgeciras, and possibly theAbbasid-controlled town ofAsilah in modern-dayMorocco.[6]
On 25 September, the Vikings arrived near Seville after sailing up theGuadalquivir.[6] They set up their base on Isla Menor, a defensible island on theGuadalquivir Marshes.[6] On 29 September, local Muslim forces marched against the Vikings but were defeated.[12] The Vikings took Seville by storm on 1 or 3 October after a brief siege and heavy fighting.[12][13][6][11]
They looted and pillaged Seville, and, according to Muslim historians, gave its inhabitants the "terrors of imprisonment or death" and spared "not even the beasts of burden".[3][12][13] Although the unwalled city of Seville was taken, itscitadel remained in Muslim hands.[11] The Vikings tried but failed to burn the city's recently built great mosque.[14]
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When he heard about the fall of Seville, Abd ar-Rahman II mobilized his forces under the leadership of hishajib, Isa ibn Shuhayd.[13] He summoned nearby governors to gather their men.[13] They assembled in Córdoba, and then marched toAxarafe, a hill near Seville, where Isa ibn Shuhayd set up his headquarters.[13] A contingent led byMusa ibn Musa al-Qasi, the leader of the semi-independentBanu Qasi principality to the north, joined this army despite Musa ibn Musa's political rivalry with Abd ar-Rahman, and played an important part in the campaign.[3][15]
In the following days, the two sides clashed multiple times, with varying results.[5][11] The Muslims won a major victory on 11 or 17 November atTalyata.[11][5][16] According to Muslim sources, 500 to 1000 Vikings were killed and 30 Viking ships were destroyed.[5][6] The Muslims made use ofGreek fire, an incendiary liquid thrown by catapults, to burn the invaders' ships.[6] The Muslims also reported that the commanders of the Vikings were killed and at least 400 were captured – many of whom were hanged from the palm-trees of Talyata.[6][5]
The remaining Vikings retreated to their vessels and sailed downriver while the inhabitants of the surrounding countryside pelted them with stones.[4] Soon, the Vikings offered to trade the plunder and prisoners they had taken in exchange for clothes, food, and unhindered downriver journey.[6][4] After that, they rejoined the rest of the fleet on the coast. The weakened fleet, pursued by Abd ar-Rahman's ships, left theIberian Peninsula after a brief raid inthe Algarve.[6]
The city of Seville and its suburbs were left in ruins.[11] The destruction caused by the Viking raiders terrified the people of al-Andalus.[11] Abd ar-Rahman ordered new measures to guard against further raids.[11] He established a navalarsenal (dar al-sina'a) in Seville and built walls around the city and other settlements.[3] Ships and weaponry were made, sailors and troops were raised, and messenger networks were established to spread information about future attacks.[11][7] These measures were successful in frustrating later Viking raids in 859 and 966.[3]
Most of the Vikings sailed back toFrancia (modern-day France), and their defeat by the Andalusian army might have discouraged them from attacking the Iberian Peninsula again.[6] It has been alleged by some scholars that shortly after their raid of 844, the Vikings sent an embassy to the court of Abd ar-Rahman, who then sent the poetYahya ibn al-Hakam (nicknamedAl-Ghazal, "the Gazelle") as an ambassador to the Vikings. However, the key evidence, a thirteenth-century account byIbn Diḥya, in which an Arab diplomatAl-Ghazāl ("the gazelle") is dispatched to a pagan court during the reign ofAbd-ar-Raḥman II, has been shown neither clearly to refer to Vikings nor probably even to have happened.[6][17]
According to the ArabistLévi-Provençal, over time, the few Norse survivors of the raid converted to Islam and settled as farmers in the area of Qawra, Qarmūnâ, andMoron, where they engaged in animal husbandry and made dairy products, reputedly the origin of Sevillian cheese.[18][19] Knutson and Caitlin write that Lévi-Provençal offered no sources for the proposition of conversion to Islam by northern Europeans in al-Andalus and thus it "remains unsubstantiated".[20]
Accounts of the Viking raid appeared in the works of Muslim historians, includingIbn al-Qūṭiya of Córdoba (d. 977),Ibn Idhari (wrotec. 1299, copying 10th-century sources), andal-Nuwayri (1284–1332).[9] In theIslamic calendar, the attack took place in thehijri year 230.[21]
In the Muslim sources, the Vikings were referred with the epithet theMajus ("fire-worshipper")a term initially used forZoroastrians in the East.[9][6] Since the Viking fleet attacked the Christian Kingdom of Asturias before raiding Seville, Spanish chronicles also contain records of the Viking raid.[9]
The independent historian Ann Christys opined that many details in the traditional account of the raid might be unreliable. She accepted that the Vikings attacked Lisbon and Seville and threatened Córdoba before being repulsed, but other details such as the names of the commanders of the Muslim defenders were added by later authors, as "it was important for the key players in Christian and Muslim Iberia to claim victory over Vikings".[22]
